


Beauty

by riverdaze



Series: Tendou Week [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Ice Skating, M/M, Okay Not Really, Tendou Week 2020, but that was the prompt, dance, tendou being a treasure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:49:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24266164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverdaze/pseuds/riverdaze
Summary: Tendou and Ushijima go on an ice skating date. They both learn something new.
Relationships: Tendou Satori/Ushijima Wakatoshi
Series: Tendou Week [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751638
Comments: 4
Kudos: 128
Collections: TendouWeek2020





	Beauty

**Author's Note:**

> Tendou Week 2020 Day 1: **~~rivalry/~~ otp**, ~~formal wear~~ , **au: dance** (except not au, whoops)  
> ... also already after midnight, so we're off to a great start. XD

“Oh, it’s so pretty!” Tendou says, craning his neck to take in the industrial fairy lights and plastic flowers tangled along the railings. It’s commercialized, nothing but an aesthetic attempt at making the outdoor rink seem part of the natural landscape, but Tendou thinks something is charming, or at least engaging, about how shallow the farce is. “I haven’t been ice skating since… Hmm, I dunno, it’s been a while, though!” He turns back to Ushijima, a smile curling across his face.

Ushijima follows Tendou’s gaze but doesn’t see much of anything besides some lights and fake flowers. Regardless, he doesn’t comment on how ‘pretty’ it may or may not be. He has little opinion of beauty, and what does or does not qualify as such, in general. It all seems somewhat arbitrary to him. After about a year of dating, he has also picked up that Tendou’s opinions on such things generally depart from the norm anyway.

“True chrysanthemums under these winter conditions would not bloom, and would likely die. It’s poor attention to detail,” he says instead. Tendou laughs as he leads them into the skate rental line.

“Okay, whaddya think they should have used instead?” he asks. Ushijima considers that, and warm affection blooms in Tendou as he watches that oh-so-cute wrinkle appear between Ushijima’s eyebrows. He takes things so seriously, acting like Tendou’s every wacky question was important, worth thinking about. No, actually, it wasn’t that he _acted_ like it, but rather that he genuinely believes they are, nothing performative about it. As much as Tendou likes the ice rink, there is something to be said about the appeal of genuine authenticity.

“Moutan Peonies,” Ushijima decides as they make it to the front of the line. 

“Oh?” Tendou says, half his attention focused on giving the employee their sizes. When the worker walks away to get the skates, Tendou returns to facing Ushijima. “Why’s that?” he asks, because he knows Ushijima isn’t the best at conversational exchange, and isn’t going to say anything else on the subject unless prompted.

“They bloom in winter and have a generally similar shape. It would allow them to maintain the same appearances without such an ill-suited flower,”

“We should file a formal recommendation, then,”

“The matter does not seem worth that sort of involvement.”

Tendou laughs and takes their skates from the worker, passing Ushijima his pair as they walk towards the benches.

They put on their skates, Tendou with more ease than Ushijima, taking off his gloves so his long thin fingers can nimbly criss-cross the laces, topping them with a lopsided bow. Ushijima gives the quick job a doubtful glance but allows that Tendou has more experience skating than him, and is, therefore, unlikely to put himself in peril with poorly secured skates.

As they work, Tendou talks about vague memories and brief amusing stories of his days learning how to ice skate. Ushijima listens, categorizing small details that may be relevant later, and watching Tendou’s expressive face and body move with his stories despite his occupation with the laces.

After he finishes his story and his tying, Tendou taps the bench with his fingers, tightens his scarf, and clicks his blades together as he waits. Tendo is always moving, always fidgeting, so Ushijima cannot be sure, but he thinks this may be anticipation. Even if it is not, from experience, he knows Tendo would prefer to be active.

“You may go on ahead. I will catch up,” Ushijima says.

“Are you sure, Wakatoshi?” Tendo asks, sitting up straight.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He hops off the bench. “I’m gonna do a few laps, but I’ll meet you by the gate!” Tendo walks off, arms out for balance, but steady on the thin blades, experience coming back to him. He looks back at Ushijima once, smiling at the way he’s glaring at his skates. Turning back to the rink, he knows exactly what he wants his boyfriend to see upon his approach. 

Ushijima continues to concentrate on his laces, going through the motions more slowly than Tendo had, considering each one until the skates are tight and sturdy around his feet.

When he stands, he takes a few steps with his hand on the short plexiglass divider for support. The feeling of walking on the blades is strange, but not particularly demanding with his athletically-derived sense of balance.

Halfway to the rink’s entrance, he searches for Tendou on the ice. His blades sink into the cushioned ground, weight settling as he stops and stares.

It was not difficult to spot Tendou. Unlike most skaters doing laps around the rink, Tendou is one of the few who has taken to the center. Of the few people there, the shock of red--for once coming from his pom-pom ridden winter hat instead of his hair--combined with his towering height sets him apart in any crowd. Had these things not been true, though, Ushijima’s eyes still would have been drawn to Tendou.

It strikes him now that Tendou had been vague about his experiences ice skating. Ushijima realizes it had once been a more significant part of Tendou’s life than he had been assuming. That is the only reasonable explanation for the way Tendou spins across the center of the rink, one leg kicked out but gradually tucking itself closer and closer to his body as the spin progresses. It accelerates until Tendou is nothing but the blue of his coat and the green trailing blur of his scarf.

Cold air chills Tendou’s cheeks as the rink pixelates around him, the world reduced to lights, flowers, and the waver in his supporting leg that tells him he’s out of practice. Although it’s a little disappointing, it’s also, Tendou thinks, a good thing. 

It may come as a surprise to some (or, at least, Tendou likes to think it does), but Tendou spent a lot of time alone as a kid. Despite, or because of, his ability to read others and his exuberant outgoing nature, other kids found him strange, monstrous. That meant that while he loved volleyball, loved being able to shut down the ball, and watch the defeated turn of bitter faces, he didn’t get to play as often as he wanted. Outside of official little leagues and clubs, who would want him on their team?

So Tendou spent a lot of time alone, which meant he had to find something that he could do alone. First, he taught himself to draw, and that was fun, but… as much as the sentiment isn’t often returned, Tendou loves people. He loves the energy of a good crowd, and he’ll take interaction in any form, antagonistic or otherwise, over the alternative. Sitting holed up in his room, doodling away, wasn’t always enough.

Near Tendou’s childhood home, though, was a small cheap indoor skating rink. It wasn’t as crowded as Tendou might have preferred, but the loud music made up enough of the difference. So little Tendou took to the ice. He never meant to learn much, but his natural curiosity led to a lot of impulsive trial and error, and, eventually, proficiency.

The skill he demonstrates now is one born of loneliness.

That is why he does not so much mind that his spin wobbles or his ankle aches. It’s proof that he hasn’t been so lonely lately. 

As Tendou’s spin starts to slow, his leg unfolds again, slicing into the ice in a neat half-moon that abruptly slows his momentum and transitions him into a backward glide, hands clasped behind his back.

He may believe himself far out of practice, and it may be accurate, but to his boyfriend... Ushijima does not quite have the words. His breath blows warm against his chilled lips as he follows the hard lines of Tendou’s body, cutting around other patrons with quick flicks of his blades.

The confidant grace Tendou exhibits is… perhaps surprising is not the right word. Tendou is coordinated, of course he is; he wouldn’t be half the volleyball player he was if he didn’t have precision control over every part of his body. That said, Ushijima is comfortable saying Tendou doesn’t often _look_ well coordinated. His limbs tend to gesture off sync with each other, his movements sudden and abrupt, disjointed.

From his backward glide, Tendo throws out his leg once again, first in front of him, and then twisting his hips to swing it behind. He allows his torso to follow the momentum, leading him into a quick ragdoll turn that returns him to forward motion. 

Memories of watching the Olympics--his only exposure to figure skating--comes back to Ushijima. Tendou, obviously, looks nothing like those athletes do. One could attribute the difference to an evident lack of a lifetime of practice and investment. Analyzing the other more proficient skaters on the rink, though, Ushijima decides Tendou does not look like them, either.

On the ice, Tendou’s movements aren’t so different from usual as to appear harmonized. Ushijima is not even confident ‘graceful’ applies. There is still something off-center about him that keeps Tendous dance from traditional musicality. 

The wild fragmentation is thrown into contrast, however, by the fact that he does not fall. Despite appearing unbalanced, he stays upright, gliding and spinning, dancing, without a struggle, showing off the fact that despite his erraticism, he keeps careful and exact track of his center of gravity. There is no more self-evident way to exemplify the precision control Tendou has over himself.

Ushijima reflects to himself that he was wrong to think he did not know what beauty was. He had simply been missing a satisfactory standard.

It is the middle of winter, and snow piles at the sides of the park that houses the rink. Ushijima, however, decides that he wore too many layers for this venture.

The blades of his skates continue to sink into the padded ground as he works his way to the gate of the rink, mindful of the bottlenecked crowd of young adults and small children he must circumnavigate.

At that moment, Tendou notices Ushijima walking by the railing, and throws up a hand to draw attention he very much already has. It’s a shame he is too far away to properly see the look on Ushijima’s face. It is not expressive in the slightest, but Tendou is skilled at picking out the subtext. 

There are reasons normally over-sharing Tendou didn’t mention everything he could have about his experience skating: he is a fan of surprises, and nothing is better than surprising Ushijima with proficiency. After all, Ushijima is so good at so many things that it's nice to show himself off every once in a while. The urge is made doubly sweet because Tendou knows Ushijima would never feel threatened or begrudged by such a thing. He _likes_ it when Tendou succeeds, and that’s… nice.

It is also a characteristic of their relationship Tendou thought he returned. That is, until Ushijima steps onto the ice and promptly falls flat on his face.

Tendou bursts out laughing.

It’s not his proudest moment.

In the next few seconds, though, he gets moving, cutting around the crowd and stopping next to Ushijima, who looks like he’s not quite sure what just happened.

“Whoops! You alright, babe?”

“I am uninjured,” he says. He takes Tendou’s extended hand, and uses it and the railing to pull himself back up. “It’s more slippery than I expected,” he explains. 

“Oh! Have you never ever ever been ice skating?”

“No,”

“Wakatoshi! Why didn’t you tell me! I would have stuck ta ya like glue!”

“It did not seem pertinent,”

“Of course it didn’t.” Tendou shakes his head, mouth pressed shut in withheld amusement. Wakatoshi really is very cute. Then, Tendou realizes something.

“I guess this means you’ll need your wonderful skilled boyfriend to hold your hand and show you the ropes and be an excellent skating teacher!”

“That would be well appreciated,”

“Tendou-sensei at your service!” Tendou uses his unoccupied hand for a salute. The other hand, he intertwines with Ushijima’s, allowing the stable weight of their palms and tight clasp of their fingers to warm them to the bone. If Ushijima’s hand tightens every time he missteps, sure to leave a bruise, Tendou doesn’t mention it.

**Author's Note:**

> This was, in fact, all born of the amusement i got from imagining Ushijima falling flat on his face the first time he tries ice skating. It's hard to imagine him doing anything so uncoordinated, but he has to be bad at something. XD
> 
> Anyway, not edited and a bit rushed, but that's what i get for not prepping ahead. I hope you enjoyed it anyway!


End file.
